Page 134 - June_2023

““I have ridden all my life. I rode hunters and jumpers when I was a teenager. I’ve always been interested in horses.”
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Cheryl tailors training methods to accommodate different temperaments and individual learning styles. © Emma Van Dyck Photography
At 4C, Cheryl works with both Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds and at least in the early training sessions, she approaches both breeds in much the same fashion.
“We treat them both exactly the same to start out with,” Cheryl related. “Whether it’s a Quarter Horse or a Thoroughbred, they start the same. I put the same foundation in the Quarter Horses as I do the Thoroughbreds for the first 60 days. I think for bone development and air, it’s better for them to have a good foundation. We take them 1 1/2-miles, gallop them. Then,
we’ll start to speed them up and start coming in and out of the (starting) gate. Then we back off the Quarter Horses a bit. With Thoroughbreds, we keep the lengthy gallops.
“As far as a typical timeline with young horses, we usually have them in a round pen for a couple of weeks and then they get a rider. We’ll ride them in the round pen another week or two, and then we’ll start them on the racetrack. So, they’ll go for the first 90 days like that and when we take them to the track for the first time, they work in circles both ways. They know how to steer, how to turn
right and left and go left and right. You can ride them anywhere, like a saddle horse, really. Then after that, we start training them like racehorses. They learn how to change leads, how to stop, back up, trot, and all of that. They have to be able to be ridden first, not just go around the track.”
When it comes to tailoring training methods to accommodate different temperaments and individual learning styles, Cheryl shared, “You get some that are a little nervous, so we will take them with a group that is a little calmer. Usually, though, if the rider is not nervous or uptight,
132 SPEEDHORSE June 2023